Cicatrix
by mirajens
Summary: You taste like whiskey when you kiss me, oh. —GrayCana AU


**Cicatrix**

by _slowrabbits_

* * *

_He wants to say I love you_  
_But keeps it to goodnight_  
_Because love will mean some falling_  
_And she's afraid of heights_  
— inkskinned

* * *

It was during homeroom that the class got news that their teacher Macao was getting married and expecting a child.

These were the words that tore Cana's heart apart and she could barely listen to (the love of her life) her teacher's abashed but otherwise proud words. All around her classmates talked excitedly as they congratulated Macao, oblivious to the hurt Cana felt. She sat on her chair, feeling more alone than ever. When she finally looked up from the graffiti on her desk, she met Macao's eye for a brief second before he looked away.

Fucking coward.

She remembered his scent, above all; his sharp cologne when he would first come through the door during homeroom, his smell of pine cones and manliness when he would join her in bed, the lingering aroma of him when she would find his side of her bed cold the next morning. She remembered the way he moved, as if there was nothing that could bring him down and that gait and swagger was what reeled her in the first place. She remembered all the promises he made her: that he would leave his girlfriend and that he would lay down the world at her feet. That he loved her.

Cana remembered it all perfectly, and it aided in crushing the heart that beat only for him.

Her classmate, Gray Fullbuster leaned over from his desk behind hers. "Welcome to the club," He mumbled.

* * *

Broody, witty and snide, Gray Fullbuster was a mystery waiting to get cracked, and that had always helped his appeal with the ladies. There was never a time he wasn't surrounded by girls and at one point he even obtained a stalker in the form of Juvia Lockser. It was all good, he thought, as long as they kept their distance because girlfriends or girls overall just weren't his thing. He was a one-man type of guy; your typical lone wolf in a teenage boy's body.

He was not completely loveless, though, so don't be too quick to think that. Ever since he could remember he had ached to have Lucy Heartfilia. It all started in middle school when she came to their rowdy school with her beauty and brains and rich girl charm. She clearly had no interest in being any more than friends with him, and so that shattered Gray's poor little heart. The situation turned for the worst when Gray's stupid best friend Natsu had Lucy fall for him.

Cana loved Macao, in the twisted way little girls knew how and Gray loved Lucy the way flowers loved spring. No one else quite know how it felt to love the untouchables, but Gray knew that in the night Cana cried herself empty and Cana knew that Gray liked to break stuff when he was lonely.

* * *

He always ended up in her room; a sheepish grin on his face and a bottle of happiness in his hand. Nights were spent in pity parties with their good friend Jack Daniels who endeavored to help them forget about their pain—a futile effort, but there you go. There was shitty jazz music and face-numbing weed and for even just a moment, they were allowed to toss their broken, black hearts to hell where it could be of no bother.

They talked about stuff. School, books, friends, parents, movies. Stuff. They talked about grades; about how worthless they felt when they failed. There was gossip about their schoolmates, and those were the moments they could pretend they were not suffering. They spent hours on end basking in each other's misery so much that they couldn't distinguish whose problems were whose anymore. Gray discovered that Cana was a shoo in for a gold medal in complaining and Cana learned that Gray didn't talk unless he had an opinion worth sharing. She was the fire to his ice with her raucous temper balancing out his steely one. They were different, they figured out as much, but at the same time they were alike in their wretchedness.

* * *

Sometimes it all ended and begun with sex that was supposed to mean nothing, and they were both fool enough to think that to themselves. When the deed was done, they would both roll away from each other, internally disgusted that they gave into a momentary lapse of weakness but they would try to laugh it off. In sex, they could pretend their loneliness was love and their tears were of happiness. Their pretense was a painful thing to watch.

Sometimes he will hear her scream in her sleep. He will always pretend he didn't hear a thing because he doesn't know how to comfort, doesn't know how to make things any less hard.

* * *

He didn't know now he came to love her, but he knew he did. It was gradual and unexpected, in the way that grass grew and broken hearts mended and although God knows he didn't want to, it happened.

He loved her because she called him out on his shit and gave as good as she got. He loved her because of the way her hair looked in the morning, and how she knew all the lines to Scarface and could do a dead on impression of Liam Neeson's Brian Mills, and how she argued with him about football. He loved her because she knew he likes no cream and two sugars in his coffee, and because she bought color into his otherwise monotonous life. He loved her because there were scars on her wrists and hurt in her heart. It was those little things that made up the big things that made him love her. She was broken; all sharp shards of glass and a badly sewn together heart, but he didn't want to fix her because he knew she could fix herself.

Still.

He didn't tell her I love you, because he knew she didn't want to hear it because she didn't know how to react to it. They were two people who weren't quite familiar with the ways of returning love so freely given, never minding how hard it was in the first place to conjure up the feeling of love no matter how high up one's walls were built. Gray also realized that she was not _ready_ to hear it, and that he was not ready to say it. He understood that, and he respected it no matter how much he ached to tell her. There was also the fact that he didn't think he could stand her rejection, because Cana was just the type of girl who would throw someone's feelings into their faces.

So.

He kept his mouth shut and his feelings in a bottle stored away in the deepest, darkest depths of his mind. Cana would happily prattle on about one quirk or another and Gray would and offers droll advice when all he wanted to do was hug her so tight all her shattered fragments would stick back together. No, they don't get a happy ending (people like them only ever got heartache). Or at least, not today and maybe not so near in the future. They were stupid and young and so wary of love that they would sabotage their own happiness. But Gray liked to think that maybe someday, she will love him as much as he loves her.

* * *

**AN:** I am very pissed off at this because the original version got deleted (thanks to my jittery fingers). It was a way better version, I do say so myself. This was rewritten from what I can remember, ergo its shortness. Also: woW ABBY SO CHEESY WITH THE ENDING. Tbh I will edit the fuck out of this when I can be bothered to.

Also, this is the third fic I wrote where Gray angsts over Lucy. Its delicious, Grucy angst. Better than Chicken McNuggets.


End file.
